9414

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9414
• Author: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
• Title: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Annual Report.
• USFW Year: 1997.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

restoring ripari-
an areas serving
as the principal
migratory corri-
dors and breeding
habitats for all our
songbirds. In 1991,
we gave a grant
to the Bureau of Land
Management for acquisition and
restoration of the San Pedro River cor-
ridor in Arizona. Breeding populations
of yellow warblers have increased 300
percent since then, and now the San
Pedro is one of the premier birding hot
spots in the Southwest. Multiple grants
have been made for restoring native
vegetation to the lower Rio Grande
riparian corridor of south Texas. In
California, significant funding has
been provided to The Nature
Conservancy for acquiring and restor-
ing the Consumnes riparian area-
California's last un-dammed Sierran
river and another Bureau of Land
Management priority area for conser-
vation. The Llano Seco Ranch along
the upper Sacramento River and the
Valensin Ranch, adjacent to the
Consumnes River, were also funded as
part of a broad-based riparian restora-
tion effort that will grow significantly
in the coming year.
In 1997, the Foundation opened
its first regionally focused office in
California. Recognizing the colossal
job ahead in implementing the Bay-
Delta Accord's billion-dollar program
for restoring San Francisco Bay and the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta,
stakeholders in this process have unit-

ed with state and federal agencies to
invite NFWF to help implement the
ecosystem restoration grant program.
Catalytic involvement in critical
California conservation issues-water
conservation, endangered species pro-
tection, habitat restoration, etc.-is not
new to us. Over the past ten years, the
Foundation has awarded an average of
15 percent of our total national portfo-
lio to projects in the Golden State. In
the last three years alone, NFWF
invested $9 million in federal funds
to support over 100 California projects.
This money was matched at a ratio of
over three to one, resulting in over
$33 million to support conservation
on the ground.
NFWF's local, focused involve-
ment in California makes perfect
sense. Intense population pressures
(almost one out of every ten Americans
is a Californian), extensive agriculture,
and numerous competing interests
for California's life blood, water, have
stretched magnificent but fragile natur-
al resources to their limits. Efforts to
restore and protect California's
marine/estuarine, terrestrial, and
riparian ecosystems, simultaneous
with providing for the many needs of
a burgeoning population, represent a
test case that will be closely scrutinized
by the nation at large. The Foundation
is committed to assisting, facilitating,
and, when appropriate, leading
California's grand conservation
experiment.
Although George C. Marshall
probably did not know a dickey bird
from a California condor, he would
recognize the fiscal symmetry and

A Marshall Plan for Fish and Wildlife

implementation
structure of Partners
in Flight and the strate-
gic struts underpinning
the Foundation's fledgling Neotropical
migratory bird initiative. We also
believe that he would recognize the
Foundation as a true heir to the spirit
of his Marshall Plan. Although the
projects that have received the $29 mil-
lion we have invested in bird conserva-
tion in the last seven years are still in
the fledgling stages, we have taken
huge strides toward implementing bird
conservation on a continental scale. In
their own way, each of our other grant
initiatives-wetlands, fisheries, conser-
vation education, and wildlife and
habitat -operates in a fashion that
incorporates both the ethos and
mechanics of the Marshall Plan. All of
our grants are strategically targeted to
solve conservation problems and bene-
fit local communities. Another way of
looking at us is to consider where we
might be today if the Foundation had
not decided to pay homage to Marshall
on behalf of bird conservation. We
would be confronting a plethora of
high-profile endangered species-
songbirds-and our response to these
declining songbird populations would
be in total disarray. Instead, we have a
plan, a Marshall plan for songbirds,
Partners in Flight, which is effectively
coordinating a broad conservation
agenda, and funding through NFWF.

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